Large sections of the American economy are kept going by illegal immigrants, and for many years the humble paddy played a major and honourable role in this phenomenon.

If only in the interests of tradition, it is nice to see that many Irish students still take the chance to work without a J1.

David and Claire are a brother and sister who went illegally to different parts of the US to work last summer - and whose stories illustrate the pitfalls and perks of doing so.

Claire went to Wildwood, New Jersey, along with half the student population of Belfast and a good few Southerners. "My experience was that in a lot of cases employers didn't really care if you had a visa or not," she says.

"In the restaurant I worked in, the owner knew the local immigration people. They would even come in and I would serve them dinner."

In her whole time in the close-knit student workforce in Wildwood, she says she only heard of one girl getting in trouble and being asked for her visa, after being found drinking under-age.

"Obviously they were more concerned with the fact that she was drinking and not that she had no visa. She only got a fine," Claire says.

Having said that, those with J1s could get jobs with bigger companies, which were more organised in the way they took people on.

"But that meant they paid tax. I would have been paying around £600 if I had gone with Usit. This way I was in the States for £300 and not starting off with a debt," says Claire, who intends to go again next year.

For David, only a few hundred miles away in Boston, it was a different story.

"I did get a job after a couple of weeks," he says, "but I knew people who took longer and even when they did couldn't hack the kind of jobs they were getting without a visa."

When it came to entering the US, visas did not present a problem. On arrival at Boston's Logan Airport, David found that "I got in quicker without a visa than people with one did".

He also thinks that, overall, things would have been easier if he had been "from the South or a GAA player - it really is jobs for the boys in Boston".

It is not recommended that students go illegally. "Going on the J1 programme means that you have a complete 24-hour support service to fall back on, airport pick-up, orientation sessions, and a special insurance programme in case you have re-sits," says Aideen Masterson of Usit NOW. Valid points, but Both David and Claire agree that if one were to do so, it is important to follow certain rules, the first being: go early. "Arrive in late June and you really are cutting down on the number of employers who aren't choosy," says Claire. Preparation is again important, with those who can maximise family links most likely to have success. One friend of Claire's, Emma, is going to work for a costume jeweller in New York this summer and another, Gavin, is going to work in a furniture removal company in San Francisco.

Finally, be prepared to be a little tougher than the average bear. You might have to wait a little longer for a job that is a little worse than what you can get if you are legal. But then that will leave next year to go legally, won't it?